BARF Diet for Dogs
How to Make Your Own

Well to some it stands for “Biologically Appropriate Raw Food” diet, while others say it means “Bones and Raw Food” diet.

Whatever you want to call it, BARF dog food emulates the natural dog diet that has been around as long as dogs have walked the planet!

How to follow the BARF diet for your dog

BASE THE DIET AROUND RAW MEATY BONES

To support proper growth food must contain adequate protein, fat, energy, vitamins and minerals. Most of these come conveniently packaged in the form of raw meaty bones.

As a simple rule of thumb your dog’s diet should be made up of from 60% to 80% raw meaty bones.

Never feed cooked bones to your dog.

They splinter and can cause fatal injury to the intestines. Similarly avoid chop bones – they have sharp angles that can perforate the gut.

What sort of raw meaty bones?

The best of these are chicken wings and chicken necks which provide high quality protein, a good balance of essential fatty acids and fat soluble vitamins, some B vitamins, and ample energy and all essential minerals.

Other parts of the chicken such as the back, thigh and rib cage are also good.

Because they are derived from very young animals, chicken bones are lower in toxins than meat from other species which are generally much older at slaughter.

They are also soft enough for puppies to tackle (I beat them up with a mallet to make it even easier for very young pups).

The bone marrow is a particularly good source of iron to build up the blood and immune system.

The bone itself is a great, perfectly balanced source of other minerals, especially calcium and phosphorous. On a proper BARF diet there is no need for artificial calcium supplementation, even in larger breeds of dogs.

Despite some of the B vitamins being in short supply in raw meaty bones, dogs raised on them and little else still do better than those fed on the best of the supposedly complete and balanced commercial dog foods.

Alleviating boredom

I find it very useful to provide the meaty bone part of the diet to my dogs whenever I need to leave them for a period of time. Gnawing at a bone provides useful and rewarding entertainment and can alleviate loneliness and boredom, thus circumventing possible destructive behavior.

Clean the teeth and gums

Gnawing on a bone is the doggy equivalent of brushing your teeth! Dogs that get raw meaty bones regularly have beautiful healthy teeth and gums and sweet smelling breath. They also enjoy better health.

Won’t they give my dog parasites?

While some parasites (especially tapeworms) can infect dogs through larval stages present in uncooked meat, veterinarians who have trialed the BARF diet for dogs report negligible associated parasite problems.

Most parasites passed on this way are detected at the abattoir when the carcass is inspected. Further, responsible dog owners routinely worm their pets every 3 months using a “complete” wormer anyway, which would prevent such parasites becoming established.

The Other Part of the Diet

The other 20% to 40% of the diet should be drawn from as wide a variety of foods as possible. Remember, dogs are basically omnivorous so need vegetable as well as meat in their diet.

Offal once or twice a week

For the offal component of the diet, give raw liver, heart, kidney or brains once or twice a week.

Leftovers three to four times a week

The more different foods you feed your dog, the healthier he will be, including some dairy products and plenty of vegetables.

I’ve heard a lot of nonsense about the dangers of feeding leftovers to dogs, like don’t let your dog eat onions, and adult dogs shouldn’t have dairy products!

Nevertheless, normal leftovers (minus any cooked bones) containing these and other ingredients are a great supplement to the meaty bone diet, and very practical.

A normal active dog needs from 2% to 3% of its body weight (BW) per day in food. So a 20 1b dog taken for a walk every day would need to eat 0.4 lb a day (2% BW). A 10 kg dog that was very active may need 300 gram (3% BW).

The daily food requirement of growing puppies is closer to 10% of their body weight. For pups under 3 months it is best to feed a low lactose milk though, to avoid the risk ofcataracts developing.

For lactating bitches, it is 6% to 10% of body weight, depending on litter size and puppy age.

Obviously, the more puppies in the litter, and the older they are, the more they will draw from the bitch and the more she will need to be fed to keep up!

How often to feed the BARF diet for dogs

Growing puppies and lactating bitches should be fed the BARF diet for dogs two to three times a day. Adult dogs can easily get by on one to two feeds a day.

To simulate a BARF diet for dogs, it is also wise to let your adult dog (as long as it is not growing, ill, pregnant or lactating) go without food for 24 hours every week or so.

This small fast simulates conditions natural to your dogs’ ancestors, and is good for health as it rests the gut.